Ashlei,
Knoxville, TN

Being a black woman sometimes feels like I will always have unjust obstacles in my life. I will learn to deal with them and not let them anger me the way they probably should. But I wonder if I will ever truly feel like I belong in a space. At the age of 19, I began to worry about how I will one day be treated when I give birth in a hospital. I wonder if my complaints of pain will be ignored because of the color of my skin. I hate that I now fear something as beautiful as childbirth, because of the un-proportionally high maternal mortality rates of black women in this country. I often catch myself not wanting to speak up about things that bother me because I don’t want to be perceived as “the angry black girl.” How many off-hand comments have I let slide because I was afraid of the way my disdain would be perceived? I wonder when I will ever feel like I truly belong in a space.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville Sociology 110